Despite all of the drama when I’ll Have Another guns for the Triple Crown in Saturday’s 144th Belmont Stakes, a bit of spark will be missing that made his victories in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness so electric.
He won’t have Bodemeister to kick around anymore.
Through the first two jewels of this Triple Crown, the same scenario played out: Bodemeister in front as they hurtled toward the wire, I’ll Have Another coming to catch him. With Bodemeister “getting off the bus at the last stop,” as trainer Bob Baffert said, the rivalry was put on hold until, if, they meet again.
Not that Baffert is coming to the Belmont empty-handed. He is sending a colt named Paynter to pinch-hit for Bodemeister. Like “Bode,” Paynter (by Awesome Again) is owned by Ahmed Zayat and will be ridden by Mike Smith.
Also like Bodemeister, Paynter figures to be in front early. He is coming off a gate-to-wire score by 5 3/4 lengths as the 1-9 favorite in a 1 1/16-mile allowance race on the Preakness undercard at Pimlico.
“We’ve always been very high on him,” Baffert said. “I always thought Paynter was the better of the two, but right now he’s going to have to step it up.”
Steve Cauthen, the jockey of Affirmed, who won the last Triple Crown in 1978, said he understood why Baffert’s not running Bodemeister in the Belmont.
“Obviously, [Bodemeister] has been the horse that I’ll Have Another had to beat in the Derby and the Preakness,” he said. “But with the results showing that he had a hard time getting a mile and a quarter [in the Derby], expecting him to get another quarter of a mile, I understand why they’re not running him in the Belmont. From a rivalry point of view, that kind of ends at this race, but it doesn’t have to end for their careers.”
The two colts are so evenly matched — they were separated by 1 1/2 lengths in the Derby, just a neck in the shorter Preakness — that if Bodemeister, after winning the Arkansas Derby by 9 1/2 lengths, had skipped the Derby and awaited the Preakness, I’ll Have Another’s Triple Crown quest might have ended in Baltimore.
“I’m glad that didn’t happen,” said I’ll Have Another’s trainer, Doug O’Neill. “Bodemeister is an extremely talented horse. Bob doesn’t really toot his horn about too many of his horses. I know he’s been so high on Bodemeister.
“I’ve even heard him say that Bodemeister just came along in the wrong year. Because he thinks he would be 2-for-2 right now. That’s really a huge compliment to I’ll Have Another, to hear a guy like Bob say that.”
Arch-rivals like I’ll Have Another and Bodemeister are the fabric of Triple Crown lore.
Everyone remembers Secretariat drawing off by 31 lengths in the 1973 Belmont to become the first Triple Crown winner since Citation 25 years before him.
But going into that race, the main drama was the rematch of Secretariat with his shadow, Sham, who finished in front of “Big Red” in the Wood Memorial, then chased him home in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness.
In the Belmont, they dueled through six furlongs in a gut-busting 1:09 4/5, when Sham finally threw in the towel. Secretariat broke his heart. Sham never raced again.
In 1977, Seattle Slew’s persistent, if overmatched, adversary was Run Dusty Run, who ran second in the Derby, third in the Preakness and second again in the Belmont.
Affirmed-Alydar, of course, is the gold standard of rivalries.
“With the great stretch duel we had [in the Belmont], I remember thinking at the top of the stretch that we were going to have to dig deep,” Cauthen recalled, “because I knew that Alydar was breathing down our neck. We couldn’t get rid of him.”